"8 Million Strong and Voting!" Small business is the heart beat of the United States economy. This blog searches for issues and answers to helping small business survive and thrive in California and the United States.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Serving Small Business in LA/ Regulations

Yesterday I gave a presentation in LA to Marty Keller’s Small Business Advocates Advisory Committee.

While there we heard a presentation by the Mayor’s office [the Mayor attended the meeting] about the changes they are making to be more small business friendly. I found it refreshing to hear that LA has instituted a policy of recognizing small business as their customers.

They said they have instituted a policy of not saying no. When questioned their answers now are 'yes' and 'yes we will look into it'. They also have told their staff that they need to make 5 cold calls a week to understand how they can better serve small business.

For those of you in LA have you noticed a difference?

For those of you outside LA does your City or County have any process to address small business concerns?

I have asked and Marty has agreed to coordinate what Cities and Counties are doing and see if there can be some communication between these different entities. For Example SF has a Small Business Commission and apparently Sacramento has something.

They, in my mind, should be talking to each other and developing best practices. There used to be something in San Jose and San Diego. For those of you in those Cities does something like this still exist?

As I indicated in a previous email Small Business California is looking for examples of burdensome regulations.

We now have put the responses on our website. You can view those by going to www.smallbusinesscalifonia.org.

We need more examples. Please send those to me.

You might also want to think about the permit process in your area. Are you required to get multiple permits and file multiple forms to comply.

Wouldn’t it be great if a One Stop permit process could be developed that would streamline this whole process?

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Small Business California is a proactive, non-partisan business advocate whose only agenda is the well being of California’s 3.2 million small businesses. Working for all small businesses for a better business environment, SB-Cal is responsive to the needs of small business owners.
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